While chiropractic care isn't the first thing that many people think of when it comes to tinnitus, seeking help from a qualified chiropractor may be able to provide you with the symptom relief you deserve.
In many cases, chiropractic care can help with tinnitus symptoms; especially when TMJ, head injuries, or neck injuries are involved. In the case of TMJ, also known as temporomandibular joint disorder, it's believed that connections between ligaments, muscles and/or nerves in the jaw affect tinnitus.
Noise suppression
Your doctor may suggest using an electronic device to suppress the noise. Devices include: White noise machines. These devices, which produce a sound similar to static, or environmental sounds such as falling rain or ocean waves, are often an effective treatment for tinnitus.
Can tinnitus and ringing in ears be caused by neck problems? The answer is yes. Clinically speaking it is called cervical tinnitus. In practice, these are whistles and ringing perceived in the ear in conjunction with the emergence of cervical pain and neck problems.
Chiropractic as an alternative treatment method
One cause of tinnitus that may be treated with chiropractic is trauma to the head or neck. These types of injuries can interrupt the normal function of the muscles, blood vessels, and nerves leading to your ears.
Most, if not all, professionals can agree that the upper cervical spine, with its neurophysiological connections to the dorsal cochlear ganglion, is the main cause for somatosensory tinnitus.
Easing tension in specific muscles of the jaw and neck with medical massage treatments can reduce the intensity of Tinnitus symptoms. Medical massage targeting specific muscles of the neck, head, upper back, and jaw can release tension and reduce the intensity of Tinnitus symptoms.
Studies show that massage of the neck, ear, and chewing muscles can provide significant improvements for those with tinnitus. If you're desperate for a way to treat tinnitus, a massage that focuses on the ears, head, and neck may be just what you need to alleviate your tinnitus symptoms.
In some cases the pressure induced by muscular tensions may lead to tinnitus or hums. Patients describe it as an ear popping and a continuous beeping. Other symptoms can be vertigo, dizziness and in certain cases, tingling in the hands.
Although we hear tinnitus in our ears, its source is really in the networks of brain cells (what scientists call neural circuits) that make sense of the sounds our ears hear. A way to think about tinnitus is that it often begins in the ear, but it continues in the brain.
Unfortunately, at present there is no cure for tinnitus. There is no pill, no diet, no surgery that can cure or reduce tinnitus. Many say that they can treat tinnitus, say that they have a treatment that can cure or reduce tinnitus, but so far there is no scientifically proven treatment against tinnitus.
Tinnitus exercises
Inhale and tighten only the muscles you are concentrating on for 8 seconds. Release them by suddenly letting go. Let the tightness and pain flow out of the muscles while you slowly exhale. Continue this progression systematically from your head down to the feet.
Pilot Study Results
The patients in Group A with a B12 deficiency showed improvement in their tinnitus severity index scores following treatment. Unfortunately, there was no improvement in the treatment group participants who did not have a vitamin deficiency.
A core method of improving your tinnitus is to train your brain to switch attention away from the Tinnitus sound(s) to the natural sounds around you. As part of that process we introduce a range of different types of sounds including; partial masking, relaxing, attention refocus and finally adaptation.
Relaxation and meditation. It is quite common to feel anxious and afraid when you first experience tinnitus. By relaxing more, you may be able to feel less stressed and so notice your tinnitus less. Among the different types of relaxation are yoga, tai-chi and meditation.
Addressing these impairments through physical therapy may help reduce or eliminate the perception of tinnitus. There is strong evidence to support the use of physical therapy to treat tinnitus that is of musculoskeletal origin.
Tinnitus can be triggered by cervical neck instability, TMJ-TMD can be triggered by cervical neck instability.
Pulsatile tinnitus symptoms can increase or decrease when you lie down or turn your head. Symptoms can also change when you put pressure on the jugular vein.
There are published studies that report specific head and neck muscles contributing to tinnitus, the most common of which are trapezius, infraspinatus, splenius capitis, semispinalis capitis, sternocleidomastoid, middle scalenes, masseter (especially the deep head) and temporalis.
Place your index fingers on top of you middle fingers and snap them (the index fingers) onto the skull making a loud, drumming noise. Repeat 40-50 times. Some people experience immediate relief with this method. Repeat several times a day for as long as necessary to reduce tinnitus.”
An MRI scan may reveal a growth or tumor near the ear or the eighth cranial nerve that could be causing tinnitus. Imaging tests can also help doctors evaluate pulsatile tinnitus. They can show changes in the blood vessels near the ears and determine whether an underlying medical condition is causing symptoms.
Prolonged exposure to loud sounds is the most common cause of tinnitus. Up to 90% of people with tinnitus have some level of noise-induced hearing loss. The noise causes permanent damage to the sound-sensitive cells of the cochlea, a spiral-shaped organ in the inner ear.
#11: Awkward head position
Sleeping with your neck at an odd angle can kink the major blood vessels to the head. This causes turbulent blood flow, which you may hear as tinnitus.
Shatner's treatment involved wearing a small electronic device that generated a low-level, broadband sound — a white noise — that helped his brain put the tinnitus in the background.